As the new World of Warcraft (WOW) expansion, The War Within (TWW), is quickly approaching, the pre-patch for this massive content drop is already well underway on live servers. This pre-patch event allows players to test out their newly reworked talents for their respective classes/specializations and choose what they want to main for TWW. It also provides a series of questlines that connects the current expansion (Dragonflight) with TWW, an important part of weaving together the cumulative story that has been ongoing for nearly 20 years. Let’s discuss the connecting lore between Dragonflight and TWW, as well as how much can be read into the class balancing that is currently live on pre-patch.
The new WOW begins to answer the question of what the giant sword in Silithus is doing embedded deep into Azeroth, which has been there since the beginning of WOW classic. It marks the beginning of the Worldsoul Saga of WOW where a voice from heart of the planet cries out for help and the citizens of Azeroth must answers this call, lest they will be annihilated by the impending outer worldly threat that is quickly approaching. Dragonflight and all the previous expansions were meant to show the story of the Azerothian population uniting to fight this unknown threat, from the Horde and Alliance becoming allies to the Aspects and Incarnates making amends (which happened in Dragonflight), nearly every race and species has united to answer Azeroth’s call. This is what the new pre-patch quests are portraying, this unification to begin facing the new threat that is approaching.
Going into TWW, players will venture deep under the surface of Azeroth toward the heart that called out. The first order of business is to use the newly allied groups to quell the war that has been raging for between the Earthen races and the Nerubians. This will all take place in the first raid of TWW, Nerub’ar Palace. All of this is in the pursuit of finding out who/what cried out from the heart of Azeroth. All that being said, players already have a pretty good idea of who it is based on previous WOW lore. It is known that planets in the WOW universe are titans, therefore, Azeroth is the name of the titan that resides in the heart of the planet. Sargarus and the Burning Legion, a group players have encountered in nearly every expansion but were the main focus in The Burning Crusade and Legion expansions, are trying to eradicate the titans and Azeroth is on their hit list. What this will look like and how it will happen is still up in the air – these questions should be answered in TWW or the next two expansions, The Last Titan and Midnight.
Moving onto class/specialization balancing in the pre-patch, there is only one thing that is set in stone, the talents for each class/specialization that were changed on July 23rd, 2024 will be the same ones going forward into TWW. This does not include hero talents, which are not available in the pre-patch but will become available once TWW drops. The numbers associated with each of these talents are prone to being changed but not their effects. Therefore, player are choose what they want to play in TWW based on how the class/specialization plays, not how much damage they are doing in pre-patch or beta. Long story short, the damage numbers will definitely change, but playstyle with the new talents and hero talents will not. The best example of numbers changing currently is for Warlock, they are one of the worst classes in the pre-patch but the best by a mile in the beta – once TWW drops, warlocks will probably be somewhere in the middle.
There is a lot to look forward to in TWW and the pre-patch is one of the ways to experience some of it before the expansion goes live. TWW officially launches on August 26th, 2024, but players that purchased the Deluxe edition (most expensive) of the expansion can play it four days earlier, starting on August 22nd, 2024. See you around Azeroth!
